


Games We Didn't Play

by Callmesalticidae



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Homestuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmesalticidae/pseuds/Callmesalticidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outlines of Homestuck crossovers which I will probably never get around to writing out as full stories. In each one, a different set of characters play Sburb. And probably have horrifying experiences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. With Pure Egyptian Cotton/Paper's Shot to Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to adopt and adapt any of these, if one catches your fancy.

> Crossover with _Animorphs_

I actually wrote half of this before I had to pull the plug on the story (I was only following the instructions in the living will that I had been given), and you can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/173351), if you’d like. It was an exercise in trying to build things on the go, and it worked for a little while.

The series took its name from a song by Vampire Weekend:

> _The pin striped men of mornin’_
> 
> _Are comin’ for to dance_
> 
> _With pure Egyptian cotton_
> 
> _The kids don’t stand a chance_
> 
> _[…]_
> 
> _The pin striped men of mornin’_
> 
> _The partners in the dance_
> 
> _Paper’s shot to pieces_
> 
> _The kids don’t stand a chance_

The two halves of the title were chosen because the same line followed each: “The kids don’t stand a chance.”

**Setting the Board**

Sometime after the events of _The Attack_ (#26), the Ellimist approaches the kids with a proposal. Having convinced Crayak that the kids are going to eventually win (as per canon), he and Crayak have hammered out a new deal whereby the Yeerk Empire will take a severe blow, at the cost of removing the kids from the board. Crayak is cool with this because he has other plans that don’t involve the Yeerks, so if they’re going to lose anyway then he’d like to get rid of the Animorphs so that they can’t muck up those other plans. The Ellimist would like to spare the kids some needless trauma (and, as one might suspect, has some other plans up his multidimensional sleeves).

Crayak and the Ellimist will be accomplishing this through Sburb, which the Ellimist describes as “a deeper game from before the dawn of time,” and only a game in the sense that his war with Crayak is a game. There, the kids will have one last evil to destroy before they create a new universe, one that will be forever beyond the reach of Crayak, because Sburb was never meant to be a part of the Animorphs’ universe to begin with and could only be acquired through the combined efforts of two higher-dimensional gods (this is also why nobody was created through ectobiology; they weren’t supposed to play).

That this universe will be inaccessible is only one way in which Sburb will be furthering the Ellimist’s plans.

Unfortunately, the Ellimist neglects to mention that the “severe blow” that the Yeerks will be receiving will not be a conventional defeat on Earth, as the kids assume, but the meteor-assisted destruction of all human life.

Oops.

**The Players**

**Jake** was the Prince of Void, so that he could be Prince Jake. He started in the Land of Steel and Bone, and his quest was going to be to protect LOSAB and its Siberian tiger consorts from… themselves! They were making deals that shouldn’t be made, you see, and when Nix came to collect it was going to all be very bad for them.

This was meant to reflect on the price that Jake ultimately had to pay in canon, sacrificing too much and making too many calls that nobody should have had to make. Nobody was there to save him in canon, but on LOSAB he could be there to save someone else.

His first prototyping was Homer, his golden retriever.

 **Rachel** was the Rogue of Time, and her Denizen was Hephaestus. Her quest was going to be to create something that would improve the Land of Décor and Butterflies, but I never managed to figure out what that was going to be. In the meantime, though, she was busy killing her friends and forcing them into God Tier, which was a bit hard on her emotional state. They were going to need the boost, though, if they were going to survive the events to come.

The Alpha Rachel never did any of the friend-killing herself. What she did do was the killing of each of her doomed timeline selves.

 **Marco** was the Bard of Heart, whose quest was to figure out the rules and systems that governed the Medium and learn to work them to the kids’ advantage. His dreamself woke up on one of Derse’s moons pretty early on, got the lay of the land, and entered negotiations with Jack Noir (and the rest of Derse, via Jack). His willingness to screw the game was a big shock to the Dersites, but after Rachel killed Tobias he decided to toss the rules. The deals that he made with Derse would be important later on, which might be why Rachel was sloppy enough to let Marco find out (even if the Alpha Rachel was as much in the dark about that as anyone else).

 **Tobias** was the Seer of Space. His Denizen was Echidna, and his Choice was to convince Rachel to kill him and send her on “turn everyone into gods” murder spree. After he came back, he was going to pick up Cassie (fresh from her meeting with Fenrir), and they were going to protect the frogs together.

 **Ax** was the Knight of Breath. I… didn’t have much set in stone for him by the time that the story died, but I was planning on him being somehow instrumental in saving Prospit from attack.

 **Cassie** was the Maid of Blood. Her Denizen was Fenrir, and she was going to sacrifice herself (as a newly-risen god) in order to assuage his terrible hunger and spare the wolfish consorts of the Land of Holly and Knives. It would turn out, however, that the willingness to sacrifice herself was all that would be necessary, because the Aspect of Blood is concerned with loyalty.

Her username was Zoe249, which would be important later on. See, after realizing that the Yeerks might very well all be killed, she went and spoke with Aftran 942 and got herself a slug refugee. A slug refugee who then got _prototyped_. Giving Yeerk-y possession powers to the monarchs of Derse and Prospit was going to turn out to be really bad.

The Prospit dreamers were Cassie, Tobias, and Ax. The Derse dreamers were Jake, Rachel, and Marco.

**Theme Naming**

Each of the kids was going to have three chapters (one per “disk”), with titles taken from a particular song.

Jake’s song was “How to Save a Life.”

Rachel’s theme song was “Time”, by Chantal Kreviazuk.

Marco’s theme song was “Despite What You’ve Been Told.”

Tobias’ theme song was “Right Thing to Do”, by SBTRKT.

Ax’s theme song was “What’s This?”  
Cassie’s theme song was “I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight,” because that’s how she died.

**Disk One: Genesis**

The first seven chapters of the story. The Ellimist presents the game, and then we jump forward to when Cassie is dying on her Quest Bed. We see what everyone else is doing at around this time—Jake leaves to try to save Marco, Rachel is killing one of her doomed timeline selves and getting information from the future, Ax is getting killed, and Marco is preparing for war and for a dinner with the Black King.. Then we jump back a little bit to when Tobias met his Denizen, which he did Way Ahead of Schedule because he just flew through those portals like he was a bird or something (the others can be birds too, and they _do_ show their avian sides in order to run around the Medium, but Tobias just happens to be the first to check out his Denizen).

**Disk Two: The New Gods**

Cassie wakes up as a god, travels to meet Fenris, and makes her Choice—Fenris is getting very hungry, and can eat either all of the consorts of her Land or just her (gods are super nutritious). She sacrifices herself for them, and is informed that this was a Secret Test of Character. Which she passed. Yay Cassie.

Jake returns home to his Land, knowing that Ax has been killed and under the impression that Marco is dead (he witnessed Marco’s home blow up, as it had been booby-trapped). In his absence, it turns out that the tigers have been preparing to free LOSAB’s Denizen and turn Nix against the “ships of Derse.” Jake agrees to meet with Nix.

Marco is having dinner with the Black King, whom he is plotting (with Jack) to assassinate, in a bid to turn Derse’s military might away from Prospit and square onto Rachel, who is still looking like a very bad person at this point in time. During the dinner he is prompted to say various chess things, which works the Black King up into a tizzy; it seems that Marco knows things that he shouldn’t know. When Marco suggests (again, without any understanding) that they leave to go elsewhere, the Black King follows, and soon enough it’s just them, Jack, and a pair of guards. Marco is prompted to acquire the Black King and does so while Jack kills the two guards. Before the Black King is able to grab his scepter, which slipped out of his hand during the acquiring process, he gets knocked on the head, shoved into an airlock (for lack of a better term) with his dead guards, and ejected out of the ship that they’re in. With the Black King’s form handy, Marco is able to wield the scepter. Their next order of business will be grabbing the Black Queen’s ring for Jack.

In the fourth chapter we cut to two new characters: The Beblubbered Knave, and Aftransprite. BK turns out to be their session’s only Exile, and he’s decided that if he had to be forced from his throne then he was going to be the means of his own defeat—and the means by which Jack would be defeated as well. Aftransprite is revealed to be Bad News, because she knows that a Yeerk prototyping isn’t a good thing, even if she isn’t totally sure how it will manifest.

Afterwards, Tobias and Cassie meet up and get to frog hunting. Ax was going to make his Choice, and Rachel was going to touch down on Derse, just in time to see Jack betray Marco and steal the activated scepter (having already acquired the ring).

**Disk Three: Ragnarok / === > LUCIFER: Fall from Grace**

Here’s where everything goes to hell. Jack has the ring and scepter of the Black Monarchs and is running the show on Derse, helped in part by the Yeerk prototyping. He is able to “bud” parts of himself (which grow back extremely quickly) and use these bits of flesh like maggot-y Jack-Yeerks. Neither the White nor Black Monarchs were willing to do so, but Jack has no qualms about turning foes and dissenters into mind-controlled zombies, piloted by fragments of his personality.

Ax will be instrumental in the defense of Prospit. Tobias and Cassie will have to protect the frogs. Jake will be forced to choose whether to unleash Nix or not. Marco and Rachel will have to trust one another, move through enemy territory, and reach the god tiers via the crypts of Derse.

After defeating Jack (and exiling the Black Queen’s ring), Rachel will have to make a Choice between dying and living. It might seem to be a no-brainer, but the trouble is that, if she lives, she is going to have to deal with the fallout of the murders from before, and she is going to have to do so _forever_ , on account of being a god. Dying is not a punishment, but an escape from that.

In the end, the kids go on to the new universe that they created, and are pretty trauma-free compared to what they had to go through in canon. Happy ending, close the curtains.

Except: Epilogue! Having ensured Jack’s defeat, BK returns to the surface, where he encounters an Andalite, a Yeerk in a Chee-designed suit, and some other aliens. The Yeerk hands the Black Queen’s ring to BK and explains that the Ellimist said that they would find him here. This is the last of the Ellimist’s tricks—for several centuries now the galaxy has been fighting a war against The One (another of Crayak’s tools), but through Sburb the Ellimist has been able to pull another piece or two to put on his side of the board.


	2. Breaking It Better

> Crossover with  _Invader ZIM_. 

I am _all about_ the Sburb-as-rite-of-passage concept. I think that it informs my treatment of Sburb across the board, but it was a major factor in how I was approaching _Break It Better_. It’s even in the name—I could have called it _Baptism of Fire_ just as well (but I prefer how it rhymes with “make it better” this way).

The intention was for _Breaking It Better_ to be… not a “fix fic” per se, in the sense that it was going to fix something artistically bad in the source material, but a fix fic with respect to the characters—it was going to give them the space and tools to mature and overcome their respective shortcomings.

**Setting the Board**

This would have also been a crossover with _Johnny the Homicidal Maniac_ and _Squee._ Todd Casil/Squee would enter the scene when Gaz—a gaming partner of his—extended an invitation to be her server player.

Sburb itself would be acquired from the basement. Dib would retrieve it (searching for something among his father’s work to give him a decisive edge against Zim) but Gaz would get to work on it after her brother had discarded it as a mere game. Zim’s computer would notice something odd and hook Zim (and Skoodge) into Sburb. Dib would join in response (not expecting this to be anything but a chance to humiliate Zim in the Earth game that his father had apparently created). Tak and Gretchen would get involved through shenanigans, the nature of which I hadn’t settled on.

Halfway through the story, Minimoose would appear. We’d then get a series of flashbacks to previous events, with Minimoose retconned into being present for them.

**The Players**

I understand Class and Aspect to be about the player’s present and future: what the player is now, and what the player needs to do or be in order to overcome existing flaws and mature as a person (cue disagreement in the comments). With that in mind:

Dib is the Heir of Blood. Loyalty to the human race and a desire for acceptance were what fueled Dib’s crusade, hence the aspect of Blood. As the Heir he would have to inspire the others to develop and nurture these same bonds and, personally, realize that he has to let go at some point—he can’t fight the world’s battles alone, and that means letting people fall so that they can grow stronger from picking themselves back up. Given time, Dib would grow to be the Heart of the team.

His first prototyping was his laptop (whoops!). His electronic device would be Laptopsprite. He would begin in the broken and wasted Land of Chocolate and Eyes (LOCAE). In order to fulfill his Quest he would have to bring life back to LOCAE.

Gaz is the Sylph of Breath. She is Breath because she is the Unfettered, unwilling to bend the rules of others and going only where she pleases, like the wind itself. This would only be enhanced after she entered the Medium, because now the whole fucking world is a game, and that’s just awesome. Also in tune with being a Breath player, she is very objective-oriented (Sburb is a game, and she is going to win it). As the Sylph she would grow by becoming the sort of person who is willing to help others grow, in effect being the experienced player who isn’t unwilling to give the n00bs a helping hand where they need one.

Her first prototyping was her Vampire Piggies game cartridge. Her second would be a killer stuffed monkey. Her electronic device would be a Game SlavePro, with wireless capability. She would begin in the Land of Pigs and Lightning (LOPAL), and have to create something that was needed by or would improve the lives of its friendship-loving consorts.

Todd Casil is the Mage of Space. Space is the practical half of the space/time dyad, concerned with What Is Really There than with abstracts and possibilities. As the Mage is the “active understanding class” in charge of “doing what needs to be done” it would be up to Todd to hunt down the secrets of the Game and make sure that everyone stayed on track. This would mesh nicely with Gaz’s desire to play Sburb successfully, because their closeness would make it easy for him to pass needed information along to her.

His first prototyping was a Slurpee, and his second hadn’t been determined by the time that I set this project aside. His electronic device was going to be his cell phone and a laptop. He would begin in the Land of Medication and Frogs (LOMAF), and have to figure out the rules and system lying behind LOMAF and the Game in general. Also, frogs, of course.

Gretchen is the Thief of Heart. I threw her in to toss her a bone (she would have to be Dib’s SO, after all), and she is the Thief so that she can develop more assertive tendencies (because the Thief is a selfish class whose powers only directly benefit herself). After maturing, she would be able to indirectly benefit the party through her class skills. By stealing the selfhood of others, in part or in whole, she would be able to make them more susceptible to her demands and/or be able to come to better understand who they are and what makes them tick.

Her first prototyping would be a Valentine’s Day meat slab that had been intended for Dib. Like Todd, her second hadn’t been determined. She would begin in the Land of Meats and Metal (LOMAM), and have to protect it from some threat.

Zim is the Page of Time. At first his abilities would be only minor and have to grow over time. It would quickly transpire that Future Zim had been manipulating Present Zim most of all, which is sort of why it had to be Zim who was the Time player: out of all of them Zim was the greatest loose cannon. This necessitated that he be kept in line somehow until he matured enough to really work alongside everyone else—and who better to keep him under control and anticipate his every destructive impulse than his own future self. Eventually, Zim would have to mature into a capable leader for the party, someone who could direct his wellspring of motivation _constructively_ and help the others to do the same.

His first prototyping was a taco. His second would be GIR. Like the other Irkens, his primary electronic device would be his PAK. He would begin in the Land of Bears and Ice (LOBAI), and have to protect LOBAI and its moose consorts from the gradual encroachment of the bears as the temperatures plummeted lower and lower. He would have tried to control the minds of the bears at some point, but this would only be addressing the symptoms of the problem at hand. They’re only encroaching because their homes are too cold, after all!

Tak is the Maid of Hope. She ditched her job on the janitorial squad because she was fueled by the hope of becoming an Invader through a truly audacious scheme. A Maid of Hope is responsible for creating hope and creating through hope, and so Tak would be responsible for realizing what she really wants (you don’t become a plumber because you want to be a plumber, but because you want certain things that you think you’ll get through being a plumber) and helping everyone see and actualize the possibilities that exist for them. What they want, they can get, but first Tak has to help them to believe that it’s possible.

Her first prototyping was Mimi. Her second had not been determined. She would begin in the Land of Darkness and Trash (LODAT), and have to bring life and energy back to it. In other words, she would be a glorified janitor.

Skoodge is the Bard of Doom. Doom represents “systems and restraint” and the Bard class destroys its aspect passively and through mockery, just as Skoodge’s success as an Invader, despite all odds, is a standing rebuke against the height-based order of the Irken Empire. He needs to not only further realize this part of himself and destroy the ingrained prejudices that still remain in him (despite his successes, part of him still believes in his inferiority and chalks his accomplishments up to dumb luck) but also help the others to destroy their own restraints.

His first prototyping was his SIR unit. His second would be his PAK. Consequently, PAKsprite would always be attached to him and, Davesprite-like, would effectively be a second Skoodge. He would begin in the Land of Rats and Sand (LORAS) and have to create a peace between LORAS’ gold-plated hamster consorts and the monstrous rats of the land.

Gaz, Todd, and Skoodge were going to be Prospit players. Derse, Gretchen, Zim, and Tak were going to be Derse players.

The human players’ guardians were Professor Membrane (Dib and Gaz), Nny (Todd/Squee), and Darlene (Gretchen), a very minor character.

**Enter the Scratch**

Importantly, the Irkens are not supposed to be there, or at least that’s how it seems. Not too long after entering the game, Dib will encounter a kid from the dream bubbles, whose name is Louie. The kid will explain that they’re inhabiting a B-universe and that the Irkens weren’t in the Game the first time. Already distrustful of them, this will lead Dib to trying to remove the Irkens from the game, but it will turn out that their absence was the reason for the Game’s original failure.

At some point Louie or some trace of him will manage to get into Dib’s session, and Dib’s Laptopsprite will become Louiesprite. Dib will be trying to achieve this, because Louie’s reentry will be considered necessary to winning without the Irkens: a Time player is needed, but (lucky for the humans) Louie was a Time player in the A-session.

The kids’ guardians, of course, were the players in the A-universe, along with… Mrs. Bitters. The pairings involved in producing the B-universe kids were Membrane/Bitters and Nny/Darlene.

Louie Membrane was the Page of Space, but had inverted into being the Thief of Time (I was heavily into Bladekind_Eyewear’s Inversion theory at the time of working on this idea, obviously, and said inversion would be a clue that something Wrong was going on with Louie). He was raised by Professor Membrane, the A-universe’s Gaz.

Lucille Bitters was the Witch of Doom. Totally reasonable in the B-universe, maybe, but unexpected for A-universe Bitters. She lived in the Home for Undesirable Children, but Principal Membrane (Dib) kept a close eye on her and tried to do what he could. She would know Louie as Principal Membrane’s nephew.

Nny was the Prince of Life (keep in mind that the Prince class is built around the “active destruction” of its Aspect, and also that this was Life in the ravenous, overgrown, all-eating-all Green Mana sense). He was on and off the streets, and Todd was his social worker and therapist.

Darlene was the Bard of Time, representing the passive destruction and mockery of Time. She and Gretchen had been close during the time at the Home for Undesirable Children, so that when Gretchen was adopted she insisted that (the much younger) Darlene be adopted too. Their parents acquiesced, but only reluctantly, so that they ignored Darlene as much as they could and Gretchen continued to bear most of the load of raising her.

Things… went kind of badly for them, all things considered (they initiated a Scratch, after all). Louie would be attempting to use this opportunity to do things over again, with horrible (and undetermined) consequences. I hadn’t figured out the sequence of events by the time that I set the story aside, but the players’ various Quests would be fulfilled, their Denizens met, and the Reckoning overcome. None of this would be thanks to Louie, who would probably be responsible for bringing them as close to defeat as they’d ever get, in order to accomplish his aims.


End file.
